The Chhattisgarh Pradesh Congress Committee (CGPCC) has welcomed the Supreme Court’s decision of issuing an interim stay on the operation of the Chhattisgarh High Court’s interim order, issued on November 14 while staying the Raipur Municipal Corporation’s poll.
While hearing a petition filed by two local councillors to cancel RMC poll as they had alleged irregularities in de-limitation process, the High Court had passed the interim stay order, said CGPCC spokesperson, Shailesh Nitin Trivedi.
“Misinterpreting to the court’s order, Chhattisgarh State Election Commission (CSEC) had cancelled Model Code of Conduct, which was issued on November 7 to conduct polls in all 9 Municipal Corporations, 39 Municipal Councils and 103 Nagar Panchayats in the State”, he added.
To this, the Congress party registered strong protest at different occasions and slammed CSEC to work under the State government’s pressure, further urging it to again go through the High Court’s order and issue fresh order on imposing Model Code of Conduct for 150 civic bodies (excluding RMC) but to no avail.
later, Malkit Singh Gaidu and two others moved a petition through their advocates Kapil Sibal and Vivek Tankha in the Supreme Court and were granted a stay on the High Court’s order. The senior Congress leaders expressed happiness on the Supreme Court’s order and on Thursday evening led a number of party workers to CSEC, urging the State Election Commissioner, PC Dalei to hold civic bodies’ polls across the State as per the previous election schedule.
“With the Supreme Court’s decision, the previous Model of Code has once again come into existence. CSEC should conduct the polls as per the previous election schedule” said CGPCC Chief, Bhupesh Baghel.
ClP leader, TS Singhdeo said that the tenure of present civic bodies is going to end on January 5, 2015. The rules in Chhattisgarh Municipal Corporation Act say that polls to constitute new civic bodies should be held before the aforesaid date. Therefore, CSEC should immediately announce the election schedule.
As per the previous schedule, the election was to be held in two phase. While the polling for first phase polls was to be held on December 5, polling for second phase was to be held on December 11. The result was to be declared on December 15.